Last Saturday we also got the halters on the fillies. Aleythia and I tried to get a rope around one of the fillies necks (Coffie's), but she wasn't desensitized enough to let us get close enough to put one around her neck. We tried getting her into a corner, but that didn't work either because she could escape way too easily. Roping her wasn't an option because Aleythia and I probably couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a lariat. We brainstormed about it with Terry, and we came up with getting a fence next to a wall and herding them into it to put the halter on. We also came up with putting them in a stall, or putting them in the trailer where there was dividers so they couldn't move.
Terry remembered how much they liked grain, so he thought that maybe we could get a halter on them by putting the nose of the halter in to a bowl of grain with the buckle and strap hanging out the side, and while they were eating you would slip the halter over their nose and buckle it real quick.
We thought it was worth a shot, so we had one person holding the bucket and the other ready to put the halter on. We tried it on Coffie first. Worked like a charm. Did it with Frosty, then Dash. It took a little bit with Dash, but we got it on. We didn't get a halter on Toffy because we ran out of halters that would fit them.
Thinking about this, the fillies have had halter training before, and I think this would not have worked if they had never felt the halter on their heads before. We probably would have had to do the gate next to the wall thing.
The reason we needed halters on them so bad was because we really couldn't do a lot with them because when we tried to touch them (other then their face) they always tried to avoid it. They would learn that moving away when we touched them was the right answer because we couldn't keep our hand there with no way of stopping them from running away from us.
Yesterday we caught the fillies and worked on being able to rub them all over. The hardest part was their stomach. I have heard it said that you aren't supposed to rub their flank, but they need brushing there too, and it won't hamper their ability to learn how to move off your leg. With Coffie and Frosty we desensitized them to the lead rope. We tossed it over their withers, back, hindquarters, neck, front legs, then back legs. I left the head for another day because I had worked with her long enough. I didn't desensitize to the rope with Dash, because I felt like she had had enough for one day. When I rubbed Frosty and Dash's ears they were a little touchy but they got used to it and stopped trying to move their head away. I don't really know how Coffie did because Aleythia was working with Coffie and I was busy with Frosty and Dash. I did see Coffie freak out when the rope went across her back though. It took her less 20 seconds to realize that it wasn't going to hurt her. Frosty did the same thing. The only thing we did with Toffy was walking up to her and to pet her face. We need to get a halter that fits her right away.
We now have nine horses that Aleythia and I need to work with. We have Misstack, and Ana who we switch who rides them every week, then there is Santana who I ride, and Aleythia who rides Strudder, then Stretch, who gets really light exercise and we both plan to switch off and on riding him. Then we have the four fillies. I work with two, and aleythia works with the other two. We actually have one more horse, but she's in her 20s, has arthritis, and is a pony. We kinda just let the little kids ride her. Her name's Blacky.
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